MoPS Test System for Power Semiconductors and Systems

Mid-voltage application test systems inside the climate chamber. Up to 4 units can be plugged in a single 3U 19"-rack.

The Modular Power Stress (MoPS) test system provides driving, protection and diagnostic features for discrete and integrated power semiconductors during their initial design phase. MoPS allows the execution of flexible active power cycling stress tests based on test structures and engineering samples, even before the availability of final driver and protection circuits or dedicated application environments.

The modular concept provides an arbitrary, real-time controlled configuration of automated measurements and cyclic load sequences with preset voltage and/or current patterns over the whole power range required by the customer application. When reaching a previously defined electrical or thermal parameter deviation, components can be selectively disabled to retain them in a mostly unaltered state for further electrical and physical analysis.

Low-voltage DC-DC converter test application. The device under test is soldered on a small exchangeable PCB board.

A dedicated MoPS test system for testing of complex System-on-Chip products has been implemented successfully within the Infineon reliability test environment. It enables comprehensive in-situ diagnosis and device data recording in real-time during the whole stress test. A next generation multi-channel test controller with advanced monitoring and protection features based on FPGA technology is currently under development.

The KAI laboratory MoPS test environment includes two high performance stress screening climate chambers with enhanced heating and cooling capability up to 8 K/min between -70 °C and +200 °C. Multiple high power DC supplies and active electronic loads ranging up to 500 V / 90 A provide the power to verify the next generation of MoPS application module prototypes under variable environmental and electrical application conditions.

The newly developed MARS – “Modular Application Related Stress” expansion modules allow stress testing of low (30 V) and mid (600 V) voltage power devices based on novel semiconductor technologies in a real life power converter configuration under realistic conditions. Several multi-channel MARS test systems have already been implemented at the local production test site of our partner Infineon Technologies Austria for advanced product qualification.

Future system concepts based on the MARS architecture will expand the testing capabilities to beyond 1000 V and 100 A in multi-phase converter applications.

Active Cycle Universal Test Equipment (ACUTE)

ACUTE is a short circuit cycle life test system for smart power semiconductors. It was developed and built at Infineon Tech­nologies Villach in 2005 as a prepa­ration and technical study for later research pro­jects at KAI.

To provide worst-case application con­ditions, ACUTE incorporates high current power supplies, fast-acting elec­tronic short circuit switches and confi­gur­able low-ohmic load circuits. The tested devices are continuously moni­tored for failure events by an FPGA-based real-time control system. All data is logged to a redundant data storage system, so valuable statistical data is retained even in case of a power failure.